Romney: Back in Michigan

Romney made the front page of the (more conservative) Detroit News, but just a sidebar photo in the Free Press. He gets the full centerpiece front-page treatment in the Grand Rapids Press with a photo of him and wife Ann, strolling barefoot on a lakeshore. Headline: “Romney woos West Michigan.”

Whoops. Romney calling Gov. Rick Snyder “one tough geek” (instead of “nerd”) gets picked up in Michigan. Snyder corrected him. And there was this: “Romney, in his Frankenmuth speech, said Snyder came into office facing unemployment levels at ‘like 15 percent.’ In fact, the jobless rate crested at 14.2 percent in August 2009 when Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm was in office, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Snyder took office in January 2011, it stood at 10.9 percent.”

The Romneys’ horse qualified for the Olympics in the effete sport of dressage. The New Yorker sees political risk for Romney in the spotlight being on that.

“Mitt Romney rarely visited the University of Massachusetts as governor, but on July 18, 2005, he called a news conference at the system’s Boston campus. It was sweltering out, but he barely broke a sweat. Standing in an underground parking garage so dilapidated it endangered the buildings above, he pledged $50 million for repairs,” the Boston Globe writes. “What happened next would be part of a pattern marking his four-year effort to change higher education. His plan went nowhere. … A review of Romney’s record on higher education as governor reveals several sweeping plans - a wholesale reform of the public system, steep budget cuts followed by dramatic funding proposals - that all ran into a buzz saw in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.”